by J. M. Madden
Logan started to get out of the bench seat, but Michael, their waiter, swept in and grabbed the woman around the waist. “Nan, what’s wrong?”
The woman straightened and shook her head. “Get your Papi. Go, Michael.”
The young man took off, glancing back over his shoulder once. Several other of the restaurant crew watched them, but Logan’s gaze was brought back to his grandmother. “Why don’t you pull up a chair?” he asked eventually.
She blinked, as if she was surprised at the suggestion, then nodded, glancing around at the other customers. Grabbing a chair from an adjoining table, she moved it to the end of their table and sat down, wringing her hands in the apron hanging from her waist. “You’ve grown,” she whispered, her eyes filling with tears. She stared him in the eye, though, in a way that he appreciated.
“Well, it’s been a few years,” he said wryly.
She laughed as well, then began to cry again, softly. “I don’t even know where to start. Where have you been all these years? And the other kids? And what happened to you?” She reached out as if to brush her hand over the scars on his face and he drew back. The woman curled her hand away and sat back in the chair.
“When we left here, we made it to Ohio before our car gave up the ghost. We stayed there for a few months, then moved on to Virginia. As for the other kids...” he paused, glancing at Marigold. She gave him an encouraging smile. “Jana passed away several years ago, and the last I’d heard Clint was serving time in county again for a different drug offense.”
The woman’s tears grew into sobs and Logan stopped, glancing around the restaurant. “Maybe this isn’t the best place to do this,” he murmured, reaching out to the woman’s elbow.
His grandmother bobbed her head, trying to stem the flow of tears. “Please, will you come back to the house? We, I know my husband will want to talk to you as well.”
Logan nodded. “We’ll come to your house. What’s the address?”
Marigold typed the address into her GPS as his grandmother rattled it off, and Logan appreciated her all over again. Reaching into his wallet he dropped a fifty on the table, hoping that would cover the meal and the drinks.
“We don’t charge family,” the woman said, stuffing the bill back toward him.
Logan refused the money. “Then use it to tip Michael, or something. Please.”
She retracted her hand, nodding. “He’s going to school, so he’ll appreciate that.”
Giving him a long, lingering look, her gaze traced quickly over his body. “I, I’ll meet you at the house,” she said in a rush, and turned away.
Logan climbed to his feet, hating that he had to use crutches in front of them. Defensiveness roared through him, the look on his grandmother’s face stuck in his mind. What had she thought, looking at his broken body? Logan went through the restaurant and out the front door, incredibly aware of the several pairs of eyes on him. This may not have been a great idea.
Marigold hurried ahead and unlocked the car. “We suck at surveillance. We were made within ten minutes.”
He snorted. Leave it to her to find the humor in the situation.
“They live just a few blocks away.”
“Take the long way, would you,” he murmured, settling into the passenger seat and wedging his crutches beside him.
“Of course.”
They left the lot and she turned left, away from the house located on the map. Marigold didn’t say anything as he stared out the window and tried to gather his thoughts. “She seemed nice,” he said, glancing at her, asking for her input.
“Very. You can see she’s been traumatized. Seeing you was a shock. But a pleasant shock, I think.”
“Yeah, I think I got that as well. I hate that I made her cry.” He watched out the window for a while, then caught her eye. “Ok, we can head over there. I just needed to breathe for a minute.” Reaching out, he rested a hand over hers on the gearshift. “I appreciate you being with me, Mari. This isn’t what you signed up for.”
She shrugged and tossed him a grin. “No worries, Logan. You might be surprised what I’m up for when it comes to you.”
His throat tightened with emotion as he looked at her. Even when the world was screaming around him, she was proving to be a rock.
Within a few minutes they were pulling up in front of a pretty brick ranch house, long and low to the ground. There were several cars parked in the driveway and Logan wondered who would be inside when he went in. The house, amazingly, looked familiar to him.
“I’ll be right beside you, okay?” Marigold leaned close, brushing her lips against his, and he took a minute to just enjoy her touch, blocking everything else out. This was an epically important point in his life-- he was about to meet his family-- yet he found himself wondering how soon they could get back to bed. Mari had rocked his world, and he was ready to just curl up with her again.
No, he needed to get this worked out. Kissing her firmly, he ran a finger down her cheek. “Till later,” he sighed.
Stepping out of the car, he adjusted his crutches on his forearms and made his way up the walk. The temperature had dropped again, today, and salt had been scattered on the walkway to dissipate the threat of ice.
Logan looked up at the house, feeling nostalgia creep through him. Around the side of the house there used to be a big, yellow aluminum swing set with a merry-go-round. Just one of those little four-seater jobbies. He remembered playing with someone there, another little boy. Not his brother. Clint had been too little at the time. Must have been a cousin or something.
The front door opened, and an older man stood there. Logan recognized him immediately. Tall, with a shock of bright white hair, he had the bearing of a former military man. He also looked like an older version of his own father. This must be Arthur. Logan held out his hand. “Sir.”
The older man shook his hand carefully, looking him up and down. The older woman from the restaurant moved to his side, curling an arm around his waist, and together they welcomed him inside.
As soon as he saw the old organ in the corner, he smiled. “I remember playing that. Actually, I remember flipping the colorful switches, and you,” he pointed at the woman, “getting after me.”
Eugenia nodded, her eyes filling with tears again. “You just flipped them back and forth. You knew to hold a finger on one of the keys and use the other hand to change the instrument voice.”
She waved them into the living room and to a pale cream couch. There was a pitcher of iced tea on the coffee table, and several glasses with ice. Once Eugenia had poured them all glasses and they were settled, she looked to her husband.
Arthur had stared at him ever since he’d entered the house, and Logan supposed he didn’t blame him. A lot had happened to him over the past twenty years.
“So, I guess I’m your grandson,” Logan said eventually. He’d brought the file with him that John had compiled, but he tucked it beside his leg on the couch. “I didn’t realize there was actually anyone left. Dad seemed to intimate that everyone was dead, pretty much.”
Eugenia covered her mouth with her hand. “No, he didn’t,” she gasped.
“Oh, he did,” Logan disagreed. “For my entire life.”
Arthur’s mouth tightened with anger and he looked down at his wife. “I didn’t think he could hurt us anymore, but he has.” He turned his bright blue gaze, only slightly faded with age, to Logan. “Is he still alive?”
“He is, but not in good health. He’s fought addictions for years.”
“We made him go to rehab many times, but it never worked,” Eugenia said. “He was always breaking out and partying. I got so tired of that word. Partying.”
Arthur looked at Logan. “The other two children? Your brother and sister?”
“Jana is dead,” he told them softly. “She was killed when her boyfriend who was high at the time plowed them into a tree. She was just moving out of Dad’s house after I left. Clint has been into and out of jail for as long as I can remember
. Before I left to come here, he was in jail again.”
Reaching for a tissue, Eugenia wiped at her eyes. “Jana was such a beautiful girl. Always so full of life. It was hard for her to accept you when you were born, because she was our first grandchild, so everyone doted on her.”
“She became my protector when we left,” Logan said. “Mom was caring for Clint, so it fell to her to watch over me.”
Arthur nodded. “I can see her taking on that role. She took care of her dolls that way as well.”
“Do you have a picture of her? Grown, I mean?”
Logan flipped through the Gallery on his phone, finding his favorite picture of them together. It was the day he’d left for basic training, and their last picture together. He handed the phone over. It was a picture of a picture, but it was all he had.
Eugenia cried more, her hands shaking as she held the phone. “We tried to keep you here, but they wouldn’t let us. When we refused to bail Chris out of jail, he said he would make us pay. But what were we supposed to do? He had gotten into trouble so many times, and we just couldn’t watch him do it to you kids. Sharon was no help.”
“Who was Sharon,” Marigold asked.
“My mother,” Logan murmured.
“She was a spineless twit who catered to your father, no matter what he wanted,” Eugenia said, her own spine straight.
“She still is,” Logan admitted.
Eugenia shook her head. “That woman was no mother to you kids. She was a broodmare and a maid, never a partner.”
Logan agreed with her. “She worked at the restaurant while my father was in the Army?”
Arthur nodded, rubbing his wife’s back. “We gave her a job because he always went through his pay so fast. Usually cigarettes and liquor, gambling. He never cared if you kids had enough to eat or not. He always came first. Yes, he was my son, but Christopher seemed to take joy in doing the exact opposite of what he should have done to be a man and take care of his family.”
Logan nodded slowly. “It was only yesterday that I learned of his criminal charges in the Army, and his jail time.”
Arthur’s jaw clenched. “It was disgraceful. Our family has served in the United States military for generations with an impeccable record. I felt that pushing him into the military would help him grow and experience the world, but he didn’t take to it. Didn’t take to the discipline. He was the baby of the family, so we’d given in to him a lot. By that time, he had met your mother, and it was only because she encouraged him that he stayed in. She was pregnant with Jana within a few weeks of meeting him, so they needed the benefits. It wasn’t enough to keep his damn mouth shut though.”
“We would hear stories of him mouthing off to his sergeants, then getting out of trouble somehow. We think he was...well,” Eugenia looked at her husband. “They were supposed to be doing drug tests and stuff, but maybe they weren’t as good back then. Or maybe they missed him.”
So, he skated through service by being a pusher. Considering his charges later, someone had caught and reported him. Logan glanced at Marigold and he could read the same thought in her expression.
“Thank you for sharing that with me,” Logan said. “After so many years I’m finally starting to hear the truth. My father still maintains that the Army screwed him over. He always told us that he was bumped out because he had contraband in his pocket.”
Eugenia snorted derisively, her eyes flashing. “He always had contraband in his pocket. I swear, I don’t know what happened to him to make him behave that way.”
“Sometimes addictions can’t be controlled,” Marigold murmured. “He may have actually been doing the best he could.”
“Well, it wasn’t enough,” Arthur said, jaw clenched. “Our family had a history. We believe in our democracy and have literally bled for the people of this country, many times over in fact. Your uncle James was killed in action, and the rest of your aunts and uncles have all served. Karen is still serving and plans on retiring.”
Logan nodded. “I read that.”
Eugenia held out a hand, motioning to his legs. “Did you serve?”
“I did,” he said, gruffly. “I almost fulfilled my six-year contract when my squad was hit by an IED. I was the only one in the vehicle that survived.”
Arthur’s eyes reddened and grew damp with emotion, and Eugenia cried a little. Logan appreciated the sentiment more than they could know. No one in his family had acknowledged what he had been through.
Arthur held out his hand. “Your heart pumps with Showalter blood.”
Emotion tightened his throat as he shook his grandfather’s hand. “Thank you, sir.”
The silence stretched for a minute as they gathered their emotions.
“How did you find us?” Arthur asked. “Was it one of the ancestry websites? We weren’t sure where to post that we were looking for you.”
“No,” he glanced at Marigold for a moment. “I flew out here for a couple of reasons. One of them was to try to figure out where my family had come from. But I ran into this lady, and long story short, her husband is an investigator with a firm that helped me find you and put all the pieces together. I had done my own investigating but when Dad changed his name that kind of roadblocked me. I didn’t know what the old family name was. John figured it out.”
“Well, we need to thank him,” Eugenia said, her eyes filling with tears. “We’re so very glad to get to know you again, Logan. A piece of my heart is back where it’s supposed to be. You’re not returning to Virginia in the near future, are you? There’s a lot of family that would love to meet you.”
Logan felt his eyes widen with the thought. A lot of family? For so long it had just been he and his sister against the world. The thought that there were people actually related to him and wanted to meet him was... odd. And the thought of returning to Virginia hadn’t even entered his mind. When he’d first planned this trip, he’d thought that Colorado would be his final destination, and that hadn’t changed. He had no desire to go back east.
This entire week had been odd. Glancing at Marigold, he found her watching him, a soft smile on her lips. Impulsively, he leaned forward and dropped a kiss to those smiling lips. When he drew back, her smile had morphed into a full grin. “What was that for?”
Unaccountably, his throat tightened with emotion again, of an entirely different sort. “Everything,” he murmured, voice raspy. Then he turned to his grandparents. “I would love to meet them.”
16
Marigold lost track of all of the family members that came to the house over the next few hours. At one time there had to have been at least thirty people milling through the rooms and laughing with each other. Some brought snacks or beer. Little kids were running around and being cute. It was so heartwarming watching Logan meet each person and lay out in his mind who they were connected to. She never once saw him misspeak a name. It was like he committed them to memory. Military Intelligence training at its best.
One little boy with dark hair and sea-glass blue eyes latched onto Logan and felt the need to tell him his life story. It was so adorable because they could have been father and son, they looked so similar. The child, Austin, was actually Logan’s second cousin, and only six. As she looked out over the people she could see, most of them were dark haired and light eyed, just like Logan’s grandparents. The line bred true.
An impromptu meal was pulled together and tables and chairs were pulled out of the garage to fill the dining room and accommodate all of the extra people.
“Bone apple teeth,” Austin called out, sending people into laughter. It took her a minute to realize he meant bon appétit.
It was a rowdy, wonderful affair, and Marigold wished she’d had this kind of family growing up. Hers had been small to begin with, and there were only a few people left besides her grandmother and a few cousins.
By the time they left later that night, Marigold was exhausted, and she knew Logan had to be as well. As they headed to her cold car, he limped more than no
rmal, and sagged into the seat. It took him a minute to get the seatbelt wrapped around himself.
Marigold cranked the engine and they wove through the neighborhood, headed south toward Denver.
“Thank you,” Logan said, his voice low and soft.
“Why do you keep thanking me?” she laughed. “I didn’t do anything.”
“But you did,” he corrected firmly. “Every time I started to second-guess myself you were there to keep me going. And in the end, it paid off. I can’t believe what a family I have.”
“You are exceptionally lucky,” she murmured. “I would love to have a portion of the amount of family you have.”
He laughed then. “It’s so crazy. Six hours ago, I had no one I wanted to claim.”
Marigold nodded, glancing in the rearview mirror as she changed lanes. “You can only be thankful. And enjoy them while you have them.”
He nodded, looking out the side window at the passing lights. “That Austin was something,” he murmured, chuckling softly.
Marigold snorted. “That kid thought you hung the moon, and I get it. You look enough like his dad that you could be brothers instead of cousins.”
He nodded, looking at her in the darkness. “You noticed that too, huh?”
“That you all look the same? Of course. Only the married spouses looked different and brought some color in. Elliot’s wife Brandy had the most amazing hair. It wasn’t red. It was like a true auburn. Just beautiful.”
“Austin’s dad and I played together when we were little. I didn’t want to leave,” he said softly.
“I can totally understand why. Arthur and Eugenia were getting tired, though. And you were as well.”
He heaved a sigh. “Yeah, I know. That was a long day. Thank you for sitting through all that.”
She made a face at him in the dark. “You make it sound like I was sitting through opera or something. It really wasn’t that bad. I loved watching you meet everyone. I got a few pictures, too.”
“Did you really? I didn’t even notice. Thank you, again, Mari.”